After what felt like an eternity the meeting was concluded, but Claude still didn't feel at ease. No matter how hard he tried to reassure himself that everything would be fine something within him knew that this whole thing wouldn't have a good ending, no matter how hard he tried to help them.
Now that everybody had left he sat down on the floor and in an attempt to ignore the voices around him he held his head in his hands, covering his ears, but that didn't help, the voices were still there. They were whispering to him with words as sweet as honey, saying that they would free him from his pain and misery and at times like these he wanted to give in.
"This is all my fault", he whispered, looking at the ground. Even when Markus, his butler, approached him he didn't budge and sat there quietly.
"How is this supposed to be your fault? You did what you did because you knew what would happen if you told her the truth", he said trying to comfort his master.
"At the very least she would still be here where I can protect her from the others and he-", as he realized what he was about to say he shut his mouth, trying to keep the memories from coming back.
Seeing the state his master was in Markus decided to drop it and helped him get to his room where he left him after assuring that nobody else was in there and just as he was about to leave he noticed something laying on the desk.
Carefully he approached the desk, asking his master if he was expecting any news.
"Not that I remember, why is there something wrong?", asked Claude who stood behind him.
After looking over his shoulder Claude saw a letter on his desk. It seemed like the person who wrote it was in a hurry, the ink on it was smudged all across the paper. Now that he looked at it from a bit closer he recognized the writing, he had already seen it multiple times before. What could he possibly want?
"Master, should I-"
"There's no need, you may leave the room, I know who wrote the letter."
"Of course, master", said Markus, even though he still didn't feel comfortable leaving Claude alone, when he was so unstable.
As he heard the door shutting behind him he picked up the letter and sat down on his bed, but he still couldn't bring himself to open it.
Not only is he not able to keep his loved one close, but now he's also afraid of his family, mocked one of the voices.
Right, it's a wonder that he was able to pick it up without trembling like a complete fool, said another one.
The scornful comments didn't stop there and even though he swore to not be affected by them anymore he still felt a stinging pain in his heart hearing what they said, knowing that every single one of them hit the bullseye. He wasn't able to protect her and now he didn't even want to look at what his only family had to say to him.
"I'm truly a coward", he said in a low voice looking at the letter in his hands.
Minutes passed, then hours, but he still couldn't open it. He wasn't ready to see what he had to say, but thinking that it could be something urgent or that he was in danger he opened the letter with shaking hands reading line after line. When he finished reading the letter he had a strange expression on his face, it was a mix of anger, pain, hatred, as well as sadness.
He knew that something like this would happen sooner or later, but he still hoped, that he wouldn't sacrifice himself for everybody else.
~Why is it that you can't be selfish for once in your life?~
"Now it's too late to worry either way", he said taking out a small knife from his drawer.
He slowly placed the knife on his thumb and cut into it. Blood started to flow out and he pressed his finger on the piece of paper in his hands. As the ink on it started disappearing a familiar symbol appeared on the back of his hand.
"You showed me what it meant to be alive, when I was on the verge of ending it all", he said in a quiet but resolute voice, "so one last time let me be of use to you."
When he finished speaking those words the black snake on the back of his hand started moving and opening its eyes.
"Do you know why I called the two of you?", asked Midas, the head of Velveraz.
"No, father", answered the young man.
"It has come to my attention, that you aren't fullfilling the task I gave you and instead you leave your sister to do all the reports."
"I-", began the boy, but he was interrupted by his father.
"I don't want to hear any excuses, instead I want you to think about why I gave this assignment to you and not your sister. As for you", he said turning to his daughter, "I expected you to know better. I was being lenient with you for the past few months because I know what you went through, but that's not an excuse for doing stuff like this on your own without asking me first."
"But that's unfair father, we were just splitting up the work so it would be easier!", objected the boy again trying to help his sister.
"It seemed like you still don't understand why I gave you this assignment and instead of thinking about what you did wrong you're now talking back to me. At least your sister acknowledged the mistakes she made and apologized", he said now angry.
"What?", the boy asked looking at his sister in disbelief.
"Could you please leave us alone for a moment? I want to talk to your brother in private."
"Yes father", said the girl obedient leaving the room and her shocked broter behind.
After that she didn't hear anything from the room for the next few hours, but she was sure that her brother was still in there, after all there was only one way to leave the room and that was through the door she was standing in front of.
Still she knew that it wasn't a mistake to apologize to her father first, he had already been aware of the fact that the two of them swapped tasks without telling him all along, that was why he had asked them the evening before, as to wether they had anything to say to him.
Finally after another hour her brother was able to leave the room. She could see on his face that their father had given him a long lecture, about what he did wrong, but even so it didn't look like he was beaten by him. After all even when he was angry he tried to leave violence as his last resort to disciple his kids.
Even if he didn't beat his kids or anything he still gave them punishments according to what they did wrong. He wanted to show his kids that they shouldn't use violence as a solution for everything, but he also wanted them to know that every action of theirs had consequences and that everybody had to bear these consequences no matter what gender or rank.
But even then, the 'perfect' golden family everybody always talked about was nothing more than a myth to keep everybody that was a part of Velveraz safe, especially now that the restriction started to take more and more of a toll on Midas.
There was no doubt, soon he would have to give up his seat, but none of his children were ready to take over for him yet, so he had to keep going, no matter how long it would take, even if his body wasn't listening to him anymore. All that mattered to him was that his children were sound and safe.
Just as he was about to get up from his seat he felt something warm running down from his stomach. Slowly he looked down, just to see a lake of blood underneath him before the whole world went black.
A.N.G.E.L. was a project in which a persons DNA was changed in a way that they would grant supernatural beings immortality. After countless research and experiments there was a succesfull case of the A.N.G.E.L. project. But soon both the scientist and the only succesful case of the experiment disappeared without leaving a trace.
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